Translated from Serbian by Jean Descat Although this book exists in English (as The Mouth Full of Earth), it is out of print. But I found it intriguing and beautifully written, so am sharing it with you anyway. (And for readers who read in French or Serbian.) A man comes home to Montenegro to die—he …
Continue reading La bouche pleine de terre: Branimir Šćepanović
I wasn’t going to write this, since I’ve already reviewed a book in the Shardlake series (Dark Fire). But Tombland is a little different—it is not just a murder mystery but also describes a little-known event in English history. The series centres around Matthew Shardlake, a hunchback lawyer in London, who used to work for …
A mysterious substance called Dust; the alethiometer, an instrument that can reveal the truth; and daemons, animal-shaped manifestations of people’s inner selves: we are in familiar territory, the world of Philip Pullman’s trilogy, His Dark Materials. Almost 20 years after the last book in the trilogy was published, Pullman is revisiting its universe, taking us …
Continue reading The Book of Dust, Book 1: La Belle Sauvage—Philip Pullman
Translated from Turkish by Ekin Oklap Orhan Pamuk’s latest novel is about obsession, guilt and the destructive relations between fathers and sons. The novel is narrated by Cem, looking back on himself as a 16-year-old boy. His father, a pharmacist and a communist, is often absent—he is either in prison for his communist beliefs or …
Talking About Books 